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Alexander von Humboldt

Alexander von Humboldt Books

Naturalist

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“While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races of men. There are nations more susceptible of cultivation, more highly civilized, more ennobled by mental cultivation than others—but none in themselves nobler than others.”

HumanityRaceIdentityRacismUnityHumanismEqualityCivilizedHomo SapiensHuman Species
Book:Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe: Part One, 1858
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“Statistical projections which speak to the senses without fatiguing the mind, possess the advantage of fixing the attention on a great number of important facts.”

MindImportantFactsSpeakNumbersAttentionAdvantageSensesProjectionFixing
Book:Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain: Containing Researches Relative to the Geography of Mexico, the Extent of Its Surface, and Its Political Division Into Intendancies, the Physical Aspect of the Country, the Population, the State of Agriculture and Manufacturing and Commercial Industry, the Canals Projected Between the South Sea and Atlantic Ocean, the Crown Revenues, the Quantity of the Precious Metals which Have Flowed from Mexico Into Europe and Asia, Since the Discovery of the New Continent, and the Military Defence of New Spain
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“The most powerful influence exercised by the Arabs on general natural physics was that directed to the advances of chemistry ; a science for which this race created a new era.(...) Besides making laudatory mention of that which we owe to the natural science of the Arabs in both the terrestrial and celestial spheres, we must likewise allude to their contributions in separate paths of intellectual development to the general mass of mathematical science.”

NaturalPowerfulRacePathInfluenceDevelopmentMassIntellectualPhysicsMathematicalErasContributionMost PowerfulChemistrySpheresCelestialNatural ScienceNew EraIntellectual Development
Author:Alexander von Humboldt
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“Time is the most important thing in human life, for what is pleasure after the departure of time? and the most consolatory, since pain, when pain has passed, is nothing. Time is the wheel-track in which we roll on towards eternity, conducting us to the Incomprehensible. In its progress there is a ripening power, and it ripens us the more, and the more powerfully, when we duly estimate it. Listen to its voice, do not waste it, but regard it as the highest finite good, in which all finite things are resolved.”

LifeHumansImportantPainVoicePleasureProgressWasteHighestEternityRegardImportant ThingsTrackHuman LifeWheelsFiniteDepartureConductingRipening
Author:Alexander von Humboldt
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“It is a proverbial expression that every man is the maker of his own fortune, and we usually regard it as implying that every man by his folly or wisdom prepares good or evil for himself. But we may view it in another light, namely, that we may so accommodate ourselves to the dispositions of Providence as to be happy in our lot, whatever may be its privations.”

MenMayLightEvilViewsExpressionRegardFortuneEvery ManFollyMakersProvidenceDispositionAccommodateProverbialImplying
Author:Alexander von Humboldt
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